Public trust in media a more pertinent issue than press’s First Amendment rights
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In this Nov. 9 frame from video, Janna Basler, right, who works in the University of Missouri’s office of Greek life, tells photographer Tim Tai, to “leave these students alone” in their “personal space,” in Columbia, Mo. Protesters credited with helping oust the University of Missouri System’s president and the head of its flagship campus welcomed reporters to cover their demonstrations Tuesday, a day after a videotaped clash between some protesters and a student photographer drew media condemnation as an affront to the free press.
The events at Mizzou involving the resignation of university president Tim Wolfe, Concerned Student 1950 assembly and the student journalist Tim Tai demonstrate a concern that goes beyond just institutional racism.
While Tai and other journalists’ presence is protected by the First Amendment just as much as the students’ right of assembly, the fact that a media presence was unwelcome is telling of the condition the way news is presented.
How can the black community possibly trust the media to tell their stories when the majority of the coverage of events that led to Black Lives Matter focused on rioting rather than the peaceful protesting, or, more importantly, the larger issue at hand, which is the racist trend in police brutality on the national level?
Furthermore, how can the black community, or any minority community whether it is transgender people, Hispanics, women or anyone else, trust news outlets to convey its perspective when the majority of humans in executive positions are white, privileged males?
The duty of the press is to empower the public with information. When anything is misrepresented in any capacity, the press fails to fulfill its purpose and thus fails the public. But how can the press fulfill that responsibility when it isn’t employing minority persons in executive positions?
Major news media that have failed the public have tainted the name and integrity of the press for every media outlet. This is mainly due to the dominant presence of the white privileged male perspective among media outlets.
Truly balanced reporting will not be achieved until the demographic of media workers in higher positions is just as diverse as the United States’ population. More people of color and of all non-male genders should strive to be editors, producers and senior reporters to offset the existing dominant perspective.
However, this is easier said than done. First, we have to acknowledge the role that racism and sexism has played in creating today’s environment and shaping the systems around us.
We at The Parthenon value a truthful, ethical standard of reporting as well as maintaining a relationship of trust with our readers.
If there is any sort of issue on campus, we want to tell the story of the people involved and strive for a level of fairness and accuracy that surpasses that of many larger media outlets that have caused the industry to lose trust in newsgatherers.
This is the student newspaper. Its purpose is to serve the student body as a voice, representative of all students.
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Atheist Biologist • Nov 18, 2015 at 7:48 am
On the other hand, when you put the ideologies of identity politics so rampant in this article aside, you realize that the people making decisions don’t have to share your particular identity to make decisions that are, in fact, in your best interests. If it were true that a person has to be just like you to be able to make decisions that aren’t biased against you, then slavery would never have ended, non-land holding men and women would never have gotten the vote, and no one would ever trust someone not of their particular identity to lead. However, in the real world, the vast majority of people prefer to view people not as an identity (whether that identity be racially-based, gender-based, sexual orientation-based, religiously-based or any other), but as an individual, capable of empathizing with a great many other people who are very different from them in many ways, and very much alike with them in other ways. Social engineering of the type preferred by those who utilize identity politics considers only a person’s identity in determining their qualifications, and forced diversity is false diversity. You end up with ideologically homogeneous groups who may not share a particular identity, but ironically possess no diversity of opinion at all. This is how groups become disenfranchised and marginalized, when their opinions are viewed through this out-group lens.
Niu Chang • Nov 12, 2015 at 1:14 pm
Kudos to Tim Tai! A typical Chinese American kid that ensembles the nobility, decency, fairness, determinations and perseverance of our next generation. We do not whine about discrimination, we study hard. We do not beg the society and government for handouts, we work our ass off and earn our respect and dignity. We do not bully, we stand our ground and fight for what we hold dear and for our loved ones. People missed the “big picture” here in this story — a brave and lonely Chinese American student journalist being mobbed and bullied by Black and white ultra-left liberal “nazis” and thugs 20 and 30 to 1 and did not back off and firmly and calmly stand his ground — that the same sad story that Chinese Americans, in particular, and Asian Americans, in general, (and to a much lesser extent, the silent majority of middle class whites), are being systemically discriminated against in this nation — are repeated everyday and everywhere in our schools, on our campus and in our society. That Chinese Americans are being bullied upon and discriminated against by both the left and right, and both the Black and white is the norm and not the exceptions. That a large portion of the Black and Hispanic minorities have this very sick and angry mob “entitlement” mentality that unfairly trample upon other ethnic minorities and the silent majority of whites’ rights.